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Contemporary Coastal Design

coastal look

ETSY has been busy re-designing shop-fronts. I have used that as an opportunity to re-think how I describe what it is that I do. I seem to have outgrown my first strapline, ‘Coast and Country Textiles’: firstly because with the advent of my greeting cards range, I no longer offer textile products alone; and secondly because my work has naturally graduated towards the coast rather than the country. Time for a re-think.

Playing with straplines is an interesting activity. It has forced me to take a step back and look at my work from the outside. I have had all kinds of conversations with myself as part of the process and in the end I have decided to go with ‘Contemporary Coastal Style’. I will live with that one for a while and see how it feels.

I have always loved stationery. As a child I used to look forward to the start of the new school term as it brought with it a new pencil case and new (second hand) text books which we would cover in brown paper (as per the school rules!). Growing up in Ireland, we had ‘copy books’ not ‘exercise books’ – each subject had a different colour – and I couldn’t wait to write the first word on the first line on the first page. Friends have teased me for having an addiction to ‘colour coding’ and to insisting on all folders in my office being blue! But I can’t help it. Stationery, and the smell of new books, is where it’s at.

This of course, brings me to the point. I have decided to indulge my love of all things stationery and design my own greetings cards. As with all my other work, the designs are based on appliquéd images of my favourite wading birds. I am delighted with how they have turned out. Have a look and see what you think…..

I’ve been branching out a little in terms of my product range which now includes 100% cotton screen printed Avocets and Oystercatchers aprons. I’m delighted with how they’ve turned out. They look great and are so easy to wash and wear. I’m certainly going to add a few more of these to the range and am already busy planning the next design…..

In preparation for a ‘Meet the Maker’ feature to appear on the Devon Life website (next week) I arranged for my amazing product photographer to do a photo shoot in my ‘studio’ – aka the kitchen table. We had a lot of fun and for someone who absolutely HATES having their photo taken, I’m really pleased with the results 🙂

The last few weeks have seen me branching out a bit in a bid to expand my portfolio of products. I have recently completed designs for two aprons to match my Avocets and Oystercatchers tea towels. They are currently in the process of being screen printed and I can’t wait to see the results. I’ve really enjoyed returning to the drawing board and having some fun with my sewing machine as it’s so easy to get caught up in the process of making already established designs to fulfil orders. I may find myself with a bit more time in the near future to focus on the design side of things as I’m currently ‘in talks’ with a local freelance sewer who I’m hoping, will turn out to be my knightess in shining armour. Exciting new steps ahead I think….

I will shortly be launching my new website which I’ve been working on steadily behind the scenes for the last few months. I’m quite excited about this as it is a proper website rather than just an online store. This means I’ve been able to add all kinds of links – including glimpses of the history, art and music of the beautiful estuary town of Topshsm where I live.

I’ll let you know when it’s up and running but for now, here’s a screen shot of my home page. What do you think?

They have been a long time in the making. I’ve had the idea of them in my head for some time, and knew exactly how I wanted them to look, but try as I might, I couldn’t find the right fabric for the wing. Until finally I stumbled across this beautiful design (Finger Print Leaves) on Woven Monkey (http://www.wovenmonkey.com):

I ordered a swatch just to make sure the print was the right size – it was perfect 🙂 I loved the fact that not only did it give me the hint of blue/green/grey that I was looking for, it had the most beautiful ‘watery’ feel to it – very fitting for my lapwing.

And so here he is. The finished product.

He makes me smile. I had wanted him to be a proud bird and he certainly seems very pleased with himself, and with his new wing, and of course, with his glorious head of hair. He will be delivered to my local stockist (Panorama Gallery, Topsham) this morning where I know he will be looked after until he finds his ‘forever home’.